


la clandestiné d'eamon

by sourgguks



Category: Ib (Video Game), 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Alternate Universe, Coming of Age, Dancer Jung Hoseok | J-Hope, Dark Comedy, Depression, F/M, Family Issues, Family Secrets, Grumpy Min Yoongi | Suga, Historian Kim Namjoon, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Jeon Jungkook-centric, Kim Taehyung | V-centric, Mentions of Suicide, Min Yoongi | Suga-centric, Multi, One-Sided Attraction, One-Sided Park Jimin | Jimin/Reader, Psychological Trauma, Slice of Life, Swearing, Sweet Kim Seokjin | Jin, University Student Jeon Jungkook
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-03-31 03:20:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13966251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sourgguks/pseuds/sourgguks
Summary: he certainly sustained his illusion with marvelous grace.





	1. preface

**Author's Note:**

> [ a / n ] this story is heavily influenced by kouri's freeware horror adventure game "Ib". though this story is vastly different from his original plot (obviously), there are heavy parallels/references to his work in this story that you may pick up on while reading. please support his by downloading his game here: http://www.vgperson.com/games/ib.htm (note: this is an english translation of his game).  
> 

i.

 

 

 

> name — (Name) (Surname)
> 
> height — XXX
> 
> flower — Poppy anemone
> 
> hobby — Taking walks, dwelling in her own thoughts
> 
> likes — Art, cinnamon-flavor, cloudy days
> 
> dislikes — Weather extremities, the unknown, herself

 

A superficial young lady suffering from a chronic mental dredge of self loathing, general depression and disillusionment, and the loss of her mother. Can be an intellectual on a good day. Currently an art student attending university. Has the moral backbone of a chocolate eclair.

 

ii.

 

 

 

> name — Kim Seokjin
> 
> height — 179 cm
> 
> flower — Geranium
> 
> hobby — Cooking, dotting on his little cousin
> 
> likes — Taking care of (Name), sweet bread, his looks
> 
> dislikes — Uncleanliness, slow productivity, horror

 

One of (Name)'s cousins. A bright, charming, well-mannered scholar that's about to complete his masters. Fairly diligent at family disaster control. Has the potential to be a really good person, but who knows. You distanced yourself too much out of fear to ever really find out.

 

 iii.

 

 

 

> name — Kim Namjoon
> 
> height — 181 cm
> 
> flower — Chrysanthemum
> 
> hobby — Good question!
> 
> likes — Fashion, his line of work, jajangmyeon
> 
> dislikes — XXX

 

An art historian with a big brain and not enough common sense, but he means well. Used to wear contacts but is a bit more confident wearing glasses instead. Really into grids and flannel patterns these days with lace-up boots. Thinking about branching his studies off into philosophy. Can't tell if he's a dog or cat person, but definitely reads lengthy romcom novels on his free-time.

 

iv.

 

 

 

> name — V
> 
> height — 178 cm
> 
> flower — Asphodel
> 
> hobby — XXX
> 
> likes — XXX
> 
> dislikes — XXX

 

A handsome young man with a big heart. A bit of an airhead, but pleasant company nonetheless. Although he's your companion, not much of his history is known. Wonder what he's thinking...

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a small character list that will be gradually updated as the story progresses.  
> peek back here every time you meet someone new.


	2. one

 

 

 

> _"Rudeness is merely the expression of fear. People fear they won't get what they want. The most dreadful and unattractive person only needs to be loved and they will open up like a flower.”_

─ Monsieur Gustave, _The Grand Budapest Hotel, 2014_

* * *

 

 _Excitement_.

 

It was the veil fluorescent in Seokjin’s hazel orbs that were the shape of a bright sunrise drifting over the horizon line, and you noticed it as you were wafting hesitantly through a grand oaken door to an art gallery. For an early, hazy gray afternoon, it was a brilliant and lovely thing— _excitement! —_ dappling your relative’s eyes; a fresh, dazzling glimpse of emotion sparking in his orbs for a heart’s beat worth of time. _Excitement,_ the opulent sort of _excitement_ , that was so pleasantly bright and luminous like a light bulb of revelry flaring to life over an intellectual’s head.

 

In a subtle nature, you very much so wanted to view it as endearing: a pair of seemingly close relatives consisting of a niece and nephew, going out together on the pretense of a pleasant excursion of visiting an art gallery. Truthfully, it couldn’t be anymore different than that. Rather, it was really that you didn’t have any shred of desire to spend your Saturday afternoon with Seokjin whatsoever.

 

The thought of being here makes you nauseous, with an uncomfortable flood of weariness sloshing in the pits of your stomach. You’d much rather be alone in the confines of your room in pleasant isolation; avoiding the bleak, bitter world in all of is entirety. That was the depressing, whole-hearted truth— you opposed being here under any circumstance, and maybe if you had an edge of straightforwardness to you, you might’ve politely declined Seokjin’s offer. If you really wanted a breath of fresh air, you were perfectly capable of opening a window in your bedroom inside your dorm instead of _‘going out’._

 

But you couldn’t say ‘ _no_ ’, and refuse your relative’s eager proposal to spend time with you. You polished off confrontation on the excuse of you both living in the same city, and your campus not far from his very nice, upscale apartment. But really, it was your inability to say _no_ , your inability to refuse even the things you found most repugnant, and the underlain fear of your father’s wrath you could possibly be exposed to if you went against the grain of any of your family member’s wishes. It wasn’t empathy, or believing that Seokjin was doing his best to build a relationship with you that had propelled you to accept his proposal. It was your incessant hesitation to stand up for yourself.

 

Virtually, at surface-value, and even a few layers deeper, Seokjin was one of those people that was a ‘good man’. He could almost be passed off as the cream of the crop of all good men, and whether you found that comfort in his good looks or caretaker personality, just a mere glance at Seokjin was enough for most people to fall in love. Inky black hair the fell in all the right places around his hairline, the ends fanning out into naturally perfect waves, favorably tall, and no unwanted blemishes to speak of, a man who knew how to dress well, the laundry list of all of his ‘perks’ were almost insultingly unending. Accomplished, mature, smart, money-maker, your older cousin was quite frankly everything you _weren’t._

 

As much as you stagnantly stood between the crossroads of wanting nothing to do with Seokjin and avoid him, or actually contemplating letting him into the hollow shell you’ve constructed since Mum’s death, you couldn’t refuse the very fact that _Seokjin_ had no control, or attribution over what had happened, and how it ended.

 

However, Seokjin did have the power to make an effort to do _something_ as the dust settled in wake of the crumbling grandeur that was your slowly corrupting family. As you were now assuming your new role in the aftermath of it all, Seokjin’s constant support of you and his good-hearted intention of assisting your father legally and unintentional role as your new guardian that seeped through his being was inexplicably hard to outright deny or be doubtful of.

 

Yet for a successfully bright twenty-something, with a charming personality and handsome looks to boot, he fell short in the understanding of _healing_. The quiet type of healing that was internal,  and happened in gruesomely slow succession. Everyone has experienced it-- where most forget it even happened until years have passed and suddenly, you realize you’re not as broken as you once were. You needed some time to heal, and Seokjin seemed utterly blind to this fact, and instead approached you with an almost overwhelmingly enthusiastic, loving imposition to rebuild the broken pieces while you weren’t even ready to meet gazes with reality.

 

But you swallowed your distaste and accompanied him (at this point more so for the sake of being able to say you spent time with your family member like the good daughter you were), because that was the most safe and effortless option of all outcomes your mind weighed in this scenario.

 

Admittedly, Seokjin wasn’t as painfully ignorant as your mind may have painted him, it was more so the mirage your mind painted when you wanted nothing more than to keep to yourself. Seokjin’s pressing need to interact and build a relationship with you derived not from a sense of self proclamation or righteousness, it  was ironically because he beared a humbly ardent love for you. Seokjin was a good man with a desire to love _you_ inside out, for you lacked this very thing.

 

He was a good, simple man who desperately wanted to love you and make you feel loved. During the funeral, he could see through the empty phrases of consolation and prayer that were loftily sent your family’s way. Most of your shared kinsmen were there to voice their own half-assed two cents, move on, and arrive back for their bearings in a few years time when your father eventually punched his own ticket and was in the ground next to your mother.

 

Seokjin wasn’t blind to the bushels of your family members who had no more decency than that of a vulture, yet in an amassed cocktail of compassion, pity, and daunting what-ifs for his little cousin, Seokjin had made a vow to love and look after you in your now slowly dissipating parents footsteps. Your mother was gone, and it reduced your father to a bumbling, incapable fool that couldn’t even love his daughter anymore, and that perhaps was what struck the loudest cord in Seokjin. In theory, it’s a heart-warming decision, and though you weren’t exactly denying his unfathomable troves of love he reserved for your sake, in practice, you were rather avoiding it. Maybe it was because you were afraid. Maybe you’re “just tired”, as you have been ever since attending the funeral. There stands between you both an invisible, impenetrable wall. On one side you did nothing but stand hesitantly, while Seokjin was desperately finding and means to break it down on the other.

 

Essentially, your family members were just like predators lingering in the brush; but instead of rabbits as their prey, they instead hungered for their bits of luxurious riches in whatever shape or form that would supposedly be divvied up “fairly” amongst everyone, and help them case after the temporary lavish and ‘feel-good’ high they craved. You knew how it would play out— inevitably being tossed to the wayside once they got their fill and only being considered somewhat worthwhile when you were going to end up being forced into bringing a nice gift to the annual family reunion (of which was slowly becoming every two, now every three years before you were sure you would no longer remember one another’s faces).

 

In light of cruel events, and how the palpable pieces that could be salvaged had landed, it was an apparent conclusion: _the two of you were tied together from here on out for life._

 

“Isn’t it incredible?”

 

Seokjin whispered, and whether it was to you, or him softly thinking aloud, you wouldn’t know. The large vicinity with vaulted ceilings that was swelling with mystery and sophistication had likewise put you in a trance. You brought yourself back to earth when the heels of your lace-up boots and his polished loafers was a indication of your presence; the marble floor was so cleanly and pristine that your pairs of shoes made crisp “clacks” against the sheer tiling. It was a smooth transition from the grand foyer into the _almost_ open downstairs gallery. But the first hurdle was the reception desk, something you positively dreaded and mulled over even after hours passed. Standing in front a sole individual that observed legions of people pass through a specific building, looking an individual up and down and watching you interact, seemed like an impeccably judgmental exchange.

 

An older man, that at a glance screamed carbon copy of Reginald Jeeves, had short, snow-like hair graying at the scalp in the form of a sophisticated comb-over with incredibly teal irises that looked as though they had never once suffered an agent of aging. He was dressed in a fine-pressed, onyx black suit with a candy red bowtie and cumberbund to boot, and his face hardly moved as he gave patrons their reserved or at-the-door purchased admission tickets. A large, rectangular poster hung behind him was of an intangible body of water beside some sort of line of buildings built near it, which were reflected over it’s surface. The water was so unexplainably murky, but looked undeniably real as you would see a reflection from a brook or pond in real life. No, water is not crystalline clear as a mirror— it is diluted, murky, dark, and unattractive with a faint silhouette reflecting at its surface of whatever was nearby. On the upper left hand corner of the poster was a stark white “E” in Roman print, which made a vibrant contrast to the deep, grungy oxford blue of the water’s surface. Yet even from merely standing at the reception desk, you could see the gallery’s beautiful maze of vaulted walls, white pillars and hallways that were proudly showcasing purely _art_ in its entirety.

 

“We’re here today to see an exhibit from an artist by the name of Eamon. Have you heard of him?” Seokjin asked as he gave you a sparing glance, a buzz of wanderlust in his veins as he picked up his stride, pausing before the wide arching entryway that led into the first gallery downstairs. A shift of his weight on one heel, he tucked an astray, wavy strand of his charcoal hair that began from the natural part off to the side of his head, brown pools blinking curiously before catching yours. You could only hold his gaze for a few moments before shifting it uncomfortably back to your hands and shoes.

 

Seokjin had an air of certainty and assurance about himself, and his irises were a mirror into an ocean, sweeping with waves of his emotion that would eventually transition to his expression. Seokjin practically reeked with a content, knowing spirit that was confident in himself and knew of the path before him, and it unnerved you— so much so that it _frightened_ you. It was absolutely terrifying to be reminded that you were so uncannily unworthy of the strong, self-assured and successful soul standing next to you merely by being beneath his gaze. That was a constant, underlying reminder that gave you terror; terror because it reminded you of _yourself_ , your average, unaccomplishing, confused, vain, insecure self.

 

You felt unworthy of being the recipient of his gaze that was so fond for you, his gaze that was  sound and open and sheerly to terms with himself and generally happy. A clear gaze of hazel eyes that seemed as though they knew everything when maybe they knew nothing at all. A gaze that could handle the reality of himself and the world around him. Looking into Seokjin’s eyes, that were clear and smooth like brown molasses, exposed his truth of purity, a sound mind and self assurance.

 

Seokjin was a pure as daylight. And a part of you deemed that such a feat was too good to be true. It was the same part of you that cowered beneath Seokjin’s gaze, the same part of you that was cloudy, confused, upset, grieving, inherently alone and bitter and struggled to live in the reality before you, of which further upset you to no end and further spawned your feelings of dissatisfaction with yourself and the world before you. The infantile, selfish, pathetic part of you that feared the world and feared dependence and any sort of being attached to people.

 

“Ah, not really. But, I think I remember you talking about him to Dad during the… funeral?”

 

You  phrased it so it came off as question, but full-well your conscious was positive on the place and when. Saying ‘ _funeral_ ’ was a foreign, distasteful word that you will never be used to. A short impregnated silence hung in the hair before Seokjin’s voice penetrated it, just before an unsettling feeling of discomfort threatened to rise in the atmosphere.

 

“Smart girl. Truth be told, I was telling your Dad about the different exhibits I wanted to take you to in the city because you’re studying it right now,” he paused to emit a soft chuckle during his moment of recollection with your father, continuing, “and this is one of them.” Seokjin gestured his hand forward, chirping “Ladies’ first” as he followed after you into the first hallway.

 

The first room you stepped into was one with a large painting that swallowed up the expanse of the floor. It a more detailed, precise copy of that of the brook you saw on the poster hung  behind the receptionist. Walking closer to peer further towards the painting, you couldn’t help but just stare at it blankly. Because you stared, the more unnerved you felt. It looked like a small patch of water had collected into the floor and you could step into by accident and, simply, _drown_. The deep, fathomable hues of blues and indigos of the water depths almost got caught in your throat, and seemed as though they were poured haphazardly onto the floor. Silhouettes of high-reaching, dilapidated buildings could be seen even in the water’s murkiness, and after spending so long looking at it, you think that there was maybe water sloshing at your feet.

 

It invoked an uncomfortable feeling of darkness staring back at you, and a part of you wanted to bypass this gallery and head to the next one down the hall— you didn’t like this engulfing, uncomfortable feeling this painting was leaving you with. You wanted to make a face at the painting but refused from doing so, only on the behalf that you might receive some questionable glances. As an art student, you were certainly exposed to many different kinds of art, artists, mediums and formats, but truthfully, you’ve never stumbled across anything that melded into this abhorrent, minatory-inducing shape quite like this. Thankfully, the composition’s suffocating atmosphere was digested and undermined by the incessant wonder of the visitors; people propped around the golden poles that fenced off the painting were clattering with curious whispers and shuffling feet.

 

You both stood before the merlot velvet rope that cut you and the rest of the visitors off from potentially harming the piece; but honestly, it felt as though it was preventing other visitors from falling into the abyss that was created onto the floor.

 

“Have we met?”

 

A syrupy, thick voice laced with overpowering notes of sweet cut above the thread of whispers that wafted throughout the room. A small sigh slipped from your throat, and you didn’t even have to look up or observe your surroundings before knowing what would happen next. _Not another one_.

 

A petite woman with toffee brown curls that touched below her breast plate were tossed over her shoulder delicately, with a cute small face tout with high cheekbones, and ruby red painted lips approaching Seokjin with eager eyes the color of steel. You knew those eyes: the eyes of someone with an underlying agenda, someone with a target, someone with the sole intention to benefit themselves alone. You knew them well after being forced to interact with Seokjin more and more these days, and despite how morbid the notion was, you would be lying if you said you didn’t want to crush them. Seokjin, with his boyish good looks and charming full lips, looked up at her — grantedly pretty complexion — with hazel orbs blinking in alarm.

 

“ _Oh, no…_ ” Your relative began muttering beneath his breath, discomfort bubbling within him as he clawed for excuses to evade the situation. It was the same song and dance. Women of all types with a certain bar of attractiveness that you thought were seemingly forever one tier above your own would approach him in public _constantly_ . Though it made you feel buried in a suffocating turmoil of self-consciousness and revelry of not being worthy or attractive in the looks department, the double-edged sword of merit you received was that it was an easy way for you to get out of being with Seokjin and you didn’t have to deal with most of the women anyways. Your existence would either blend into setting like the importance and remembrance of sidewalks people walked upon every day, there but never seen, or allowed you to escape from Seokjin, always giving you a passable cover-up story. After all, there was a mutual understanding of “I would ask you why you abruptly disappeared, but I can’t and don’t really deserve to know because a pretty woman had approached _me_ and made _you_ uncomfortable”. Rarely did Seokjin ever associate himself with such antics his looks may have provided him, yet you honestly weren’t quite sure if he used his good looks to his advantage or not. It was coin-toss for you on that theory, but you also weren’t quite ready to test it and see if it were true.

 

“My name is Jessica,” she began, holding out her thin, delicate hand to initiate a greeting, and you could feel the transition of your existences’ importance seeping into the white tinged walls of the gallery, unnoticed and disregarded. Seokjin gently tilted his head gently, awkwardly reciprocating her gesture.

 

“Kim Seokjin.” He spoke sheepishly, looking over his shoulder with a pair of pleading eyes for some escape goat, or some excuse— looking over his shoulder for _you,_ but you were already turned around and gone, just like you were every instance this occurred. As you slinked away into the upstairs gallery with ease, you swore you could feel her prideful eyes bore into your shoulders with greed and satisfaction. The satisfaction of getting a handsome man alone in her area of expertise, the satisfaction of putting a child in its place. There was a new kind of breed of prideful, greedy yet desirably attractive people that were introduced into your life that you became accustomed to with Seokjin’s new, decidedly closer attachment to you.

 

Walking into the staircase that led to the upstairs, the prosperity of being alone yet surrounded by squabble and the activity of complex life around you pulled you into a comfortable rhythm of sought-after solitude. There was something about being immersed yet unseen— like an invisible cloak of immunity. You stuffed your hands into the pockets of your jeans, bypassing colors and others like a boat sailing in the water; an intricate dance that didn’t involve any movement. The further you investigated upstairs, the deeper you ventured into the exhibits, the more quiet and desolate the exhibit got. A teasing sting of curiosity spiked into your skin as the increasing awareness of isolation crept up on you.

 

You entered one solitary room that was akin to that of a closed off hallway. There, in an oblong hallway, hung a large painting held within the splendor of a golden frame. It was an abstract piece with a mixture of harsh and delicate brush lines sopping with oil-based paint, depicting what you could only describe as tragedy. A panorama depicting a great, great tragedy of a doomed life from birth to death. It was like a sopping, overwhelmed scream of color that were meant to depict the screams of words that were painfully left unsaid, from unlit and trampled cigarettes rotting beneath a drawing desk, rotting flower petals, and to the painfully dark and muddled color that tensely tied the entire piece together. The intricate details and symbolism in the piece was dripping in made your head spin.

 

“It’s quite massive, don’t you think?”

 

A deep and masculine voice uprooted your train of thought. To think that you were that entranced by the panorama hung on the wall in front of you so deeply, you failed to even notice the tall figure of a man standing next to you. His hands were stuffed in the pockets of his sheen, pitch black leather jacket; the lapels secured with shiny, aluminium silver buttons and some threading at the shoulders. Even the cotton shirt he had beneath his admittedly cool-looking jacket was black, his skinny-fit jeans, and boots much like yours. But what decidedly made the man peculiar was his head of fleshy peach, orange hair atop his head-- his hairline like the delicate crest of a wave, curling intricately only to fan outward. Oh, and dimples— two very prominent dimples on his cheeks.

 

“Indubitably.” You managed to speak up, now instead enraptured by the man next to you. Despite being clad in all black, his presence was warmed by his sandy beige skin and handsome complexion.

 

“I think it’s rather odd that no one has stopped to observe this painting— it’s practically the largest thing in this exhibit, if you exclude the gooping sculptures on the first floor.” You let out a wheezy chuckle at his remark, because you know _exactly_ what sculpture he was referring to; you caught a brief glimpse of it from the reception desk. “It’s almost as though they can’t see it.” As he finishes it, it takes you a moment to register his words, because a light apprehensiveness dawns on you when you begin to recall the desolation on the upper exhibit floors. Especially this room, and the two others outside of it— it was practically devoid of human life before you stepped into its vicinity.

 

“But, regardless,” he continues, facing you with benevolent dimpled smile, “Kim Namjoon. Nice to meet you.” He extends a hand with a simple, sterling silver ring on his index finger and you grasp it within your own, surprised that its large sizes completely envelopes yours with ease. You exchange pleasantries, your only coherent sentence being “ _It’s a pleasure as well_.”

 

“Do you know anything about Eamon?” He asks, his carob eyes depicting a questioning gaze, and you easily respond with a pointed look.

 

“Absolutely _nothing,”_ You state blandly, and Namjoon lets out a small, moving deep laugh, “but my… cousin, brought me here.” Truthfully, mentioning Seokjin in conversation only seems like it would ruin your mood, so you keep it vague, “I think he’s been eager about it opening for a while, so…” In your attempts of being short and sweet, you do find it difficult to search for the words as to why you’re spelunking off into what now seems to be the furthermost gallery room of the whole exhibit, all alone. What other thing can you say apart from “I’m just here to look at the paintings” without looking like a girl snooping for trouble? You somehow reach the goal of wanting Namjoon not to think of you as a creeper or troublemaker, but thankfully Namjoon senses your generally innocent attitude.

 

“Then, I guess I’ll give you a hand so the adults downstairs can stare at you in wonder as you bequeath to them your newly attained knowledge of Eamon.” A beat of silence passes before he processes that his statement may have been slightly imposing, so he adds, “I mean, unless you want to. Art interests should be consensual.” You let out a hollow laugh that only grows brighter by the time you finish, and agree to his proposal. It’s been quite some time since you’ve let out a genuine laugh, and even though it sounded half-dead and pathetic, it was much needed. You’re not sure what to expect from Namjoon’s art history lesson, but you grow quiet in wonder as you listen to his rather amazing overview of another dead man’s artwork.

 

“This colossal giant of a piece is formally untitled, because many art historians and critics have mutually agreed that Eamon made it in his last months before death-slash-disappearance- but most us just call it “Life of a Man” or “Eamon’s Last Piece”, whatever catches your fancy.” Namjoon’s attentive carob eyes glace back up to the panorama you both, side by side, are standing before. “So Eamon, his full name being Eamon Gravois, was a popular artist in the early twentieth century that unfortunately died...?” He says it like an intonation “Or disappeared, no one has a clue — but there’s a lot of theories — at a young age, mid-twenties, most think— and the letters he sent and received around this time don’t really specify when he was working on this particular piece, so his death date is more of a circa 1920’s type of deal. One letter that had been recovered was allegedly written by a close friend of his was actually brought here, but it was left on the top floor while waiting for validation and never seen again. But back to business, judging by the canvas aging over the years, well, there’s a general idea of when it was completed. But I won’t bore you with numbers.” Namjoon’s loaded information soaks into your head like a sponge, and if anything, his condensed miniature lesson only created more questions. Letters? Who would he be communicating to strictly over post? Death, _disappearance—_ how did he vanish in his mid-twenties? Illness, freak accident— _kidnapping_?

 

“But, I’ll let you in a secret debate that the textbooks and websites don’t tell you—” Namjoon, with his statuesque and lean figure cocks his head ever so slightly and leans down in your direction. You abruptly become increasingly aware of your proximity, and his naturally deep and soothing tone made you want to feel apprehensive but all the more made you quieter, and your brain was processing so many questions and feelings at once:

 

“Artists and art historians believe there’s another painting out there, just like this one, that was his actual last piece of art.” Namjoon steadied his posture once more, leaning back on his right heel, crossing his arms and letting out a fleeting sigh.

 

“But obviously there’s nothing to back that up, and when we argue about it we all just look like squawking, infantile conspiracy theorists with nothing better to do than make radical accusations against dead people. So it’s a shame, really; it’s almost like losing a gateway into another world, you know?” You nod, and he gives you a lazy grin knowing that he made a pretty girl drone in thought over a conversation about what others may perceive to be just some half-hearted words for a deadman’s craft.

 

“What do you think?” Namjoon asks you simply, but the words that reach you sound so foreign. It’s like his voice is forcibly yanking you back up to the surface from a pool of ice cold water that is gripping you ten-fold.

 

“Me?”

 

“Of course— why wouldn’t I want to hear was a cute girl has to say about a giant painting hung in a hallway?” You both laugh bitterly at the sentiment, you in disbelief and he at his brazenly awful flirting, but when your chuckles die down you collect yourself and haphazardly say something meaningful from the briefing Namjoon just gave you.

 

“I think, well… It’s like a puzzle. Some sort of interesting, mysterious puzzle that Eamon left behind, but instead of clues stained in ink, it’s in his craft.” Namjoon is eyeing you carefully now, a brow cocked upwards as you can see him taking in and processing your every word sincerely. Judging by his lack of response, you take it as a signal to keep going, but not without heat tinging your cheeks.

 

“What you said about the letters, it just seems like Eamon has a life that doesn’t add up. I mean, we’re standing in a gargantuan art exhibit for this one rather mysterious man who died fairly young, and we don’t even know when? How? Or even if he did at all? It just seems rather far fetched to me. Incredible but not credible, right? I almost think that everything one can say about this Eamon and who he is a composer will just wind up to be completely contradictory. Again, back to leaving hints— if he was so mysterious and hush-hush personally, why would he bother trying to leave artwork or letters for people to brood or deduct over?” Namjoon almost beams at you, smitten by your answer. He’s about to speak but an idea rings so loudly in your brain that it tumbles out of your mouth before you can hold it for manners.

 

“And this whole ‘passageway to realms’ ordeal… this _maybe_ is the second and most horribly large painting Eamon created in reference to another world. I mean, the two most debate-triggering pieces from what I’m assuming is this panoramic tragedy and the floor painting of a sloshing brook. Two totally different things for someone like me that doesn’t know anything about symbolism.” Namjoon laughs, and he can’t help but gently ruffle your hair.

 

 _Charming_. That’s the word he would use to describe you.

 

“You make valid point.” A buzzing sound goes off, bouncing from wall to wall in the obstructed hallway you two have crossed paths in. It’s from a pager that Namjoon pulls from his pocket, and you hold in a snicker when you see the peachy haired male visibly scoff at the notification. He bids you farewell— something about how he’s aiding a gallery walk downstairs for visitors— and before he leaves you alone in the long hallway, he pauses and turns to face you once more. Your eyes fall into a deep pool of warm carob and he leaves you with a inadvertently strange sentiment:

 

“Well, hopefully I’ll see you around afterwards. And be careful around that painting— you might fall in if you’re not careful.” He spins back on his heel and leaves— and suddenly the silence around you is internally obstructed in you head when you replay his words in your head. It was a joke, obviously— but it felt like a warning.


	3. two

 

Headstrong? Rather, headassery?

 

Two words that sound different on the tongue but inevitably mean the same thing─ _ignorant idiot_. But you see, that last quip is so un-attractive.

 

Regardless, such obvious undertones in your foreboding actions could not be fought by the surge of urgency to rebel against Namjoon’s joke-disguised advice. Not only when Namjoon left you in isolation in the back gallery hall did you determine that something was certainly wrong with this gallery— it’s entirety was sopping in a monachopsis nature that seemed to be effortlessly glossed over by the many feet dwelling inside of it.

 

After letting his words brew in your conscious in a mystifying cocktail of his distancing footsteps growing deafeningly farther from you— you challenged his playful exit. This uncommon infantile source of being unnervingly put off by such simple words— _“And be careful around that painting— you might fall in if you’re not careful.”_ — and wanting to defy them in whatever manner you could stemmed from a very true, generic hunger that regularly settles in the human stomach. Namjoon was an undeniable source of interesting company, whom you were subjected to in the common “came as fast as he went” scenario in which the ending is, you would never see such a character in your life again. An all too known, common spur of human activity that you had finally experienced first hand, and you were determined to cling onto the memory of Namjoon, to cling to the shard of hope of having genuine, raw company, by desiring to defy the final moments of your encounter. Nothing more, nothing less— that short, brief company that you were devoid of for so long, yet getting a taste of solid company once more, your weak self couldn’t help but desperately cling to.

 

Before you’re about to exit the oddity that was back gallery on the top floor, you step forward to the oil-paint panorama and crouch down to read it’s faded engraved name plate that sat directly below the center of its frame. For such a wide piece, you were surprised that this very room you stood in didn’t showcase even a speck’s worth of dust— no sheen of dirt or gunk on the frame for such an abandoned looking exhibit. Your index finger runs over the, however faded scripture embedded on it’s plaque, the ridges bumping miscellaneously beneath the pad of your fingers. It was precisely as Namjoon said it would be: _untitled._

 

Tragically, such a well-done panorama that was utter quality, even by vise of the naked eye, had no moniker or identification to go by. You push your weight up from your heels, still in the same spot, and slightly haunch yourself forward as the tip of your nose is roughly an inch apart between yourself and the expansive painting before you. _Nothing._ Almost, you’re a little disappointed that nothing out of the ordinary happened. Now a sigh leaves your lips. No, _nothing out of the ordinary_. Maybe that’s what your life was meant for: ordinary endings and ordinary people and ordinary experiences.

 

Really— what entitled you, or anyone else for that matter, to have a life akin to that of a storybook? Was it having kindness and honesty and purity reek from your soul? Being beautiful? Having a superpower or an endless trove of money? Wealth? No, you possessed none of those traits. Because the reality of it all, was that in the grand scheme of things, you are but a particle parallel to the entire universe. Storytellers and authors made up and told stories to entertain and pass the seemingly infinitely yet simultaneously limited time we hold on this earth. Storybooks are eventually thrown away by children, autobiographies are left to collect dust on the shelf. At the end of the day, no one lives in a storybook, and you know better than to hope.

 

As you begin to move from your spot— the ceiling light above you flickers three times, causing you to pause and cock a brow, the desolate exhibit you’re standing in becoming even quieter when there was no life in them to begin with. Dismissing the rising bile in your stomach, you decide to walk forward regardless. Turning to your right, you take the archway opposite that Namjoon took when he left you to traverse downstairs for a so-called “gallery walk”. Walking into the next gallery over; it’s not the coldness or the now dimmed and hazy environment surrounding you that bothers you, no—

 

It’s the _silence_. The abhorrently loud _silence_ of it all, and now instead of being alone, you are now completely and utterly _lonely._

 

You pass by some sculptures of different hues and shapes— some touching the ground in pieces and others towering high up into the gallery’s vaulted ceilings. There’s an obscene amount of art and pure matter surrounding you, but your instincts know better— you’re alone with no one else to be seen. Your internal bile is now being replaced with panic.

 

You scramble back to the stairwell and pass down the stairs, scanning the exhibits you pass in hopes of seeing Seokjin or Namjoon— or just anyone, for the matter. Anyone will do, any voice, any breath— so how can you be alone? Halfway down the stairwell the lights flicker once again, and now they are turned off completely. The darkness enveloping you is suffocating, yet you can faintly see the outline of your body moving through the halls. It’s the kind of darkness that makes you want to throw up. The quiet is so apparent that you think someone is following you when it’s really just your own footsteps. Not even the receptionist is behind the desk in the foyer—everything is just dark and silent. For a few minutes you think it’s ominous, but now another feeling of confusion is beginning to fill your senses.

 

This isn’t the quiet of desolation. This is the quiet of leaving something behind— the of abandoning burden. Logically, you want to think everyone filed out of the gallery and the security locked up the exhibit for the night (for whatever reason)— just waiting to be opened up and explored by visitors the next day. You pad over to the entryway door that Seokjin entered with you, and you jig the handles left and right but absolutely nothing will budge. The public entryway was even locked. This is the rapping silence in the back of your head when you want to block out the world around you.

 

You step back into the main room— the very room you left your relative to deal with that lady with auburn curls that was flirting with him. The thought now hits you like a wave crashing against the shore.

 

_‘No one’s around…’._

 

You walk further and further into the exhibit, and you’re afraid to call out even when you are deadly positive that you will receive no response. You’re afraid because you think that someone or something might harm you if you break this constant theme of ever-present silence throughout the gallery.

 

At this point you’ve completely scoured the bottom floor in the darkness, and you have been met with nothing but winding sculptures and a variety of paintings. You bypass the foyer once again and walk back upstairs, continuously observing the now seemingly isolated realm around you.

 

When you begrudgingly reach the head of the stairs for what feels like the fifth time, your stomach plummets. A fleeting moment catches the corners of your eyes. Your strain your eyes in the darkness, deciphering where you thought this odd interest is coming from. It’s from a window near a painting of a young woman running in a velvet burgundy dress, and a dark silhouette is also moving across the glass of the window.

 

Your breath is caught in your throat, and if another person could see you they could witness the color draining from your face. You take a few steps forward, observing the glass in subtle abhorrence— clinging with desperation in hopes that your eyes are playing tricks on you. When you inspect the window— that once showed the pretty gray sky— is dimmed and all fogged up. It didn’t appear to locked, but when you pushed on the glass one thing was certain: it was unmovable.

 

You turn to walk away from it, but you are now instead frozen and blankly staring at the window before you. For the twisting figure that caught the corner of your eye is hovering on the other side of glass, a thick, black, swallowing darkness coldly staring back at you. You want to scream because your skin is crawling irresolutely with fear, you’re so terrified you want to cry because darkness is just watching you from the other side of a window.

 

The shadow slams its palm against the glass three times, and you are for sure that silhouette was just intensely staring at you, because the sharpest irises of a jade blue pierce your figure. You stumble backward and let out a potentially glass-shattering shriek when you scramble farther away from it, hurrying back to the hallway and not daring to look over your shoulder. In a frenzy where you first met Namjoon, and as you catch your breath from the rather unprecedented encounter you had earlier, your eyes wander back up to study the seemingly now accursed painting before you.

 

A bright, blue ink is seeping from beneath the golden frame. As you walk closer to the new blue stain, it didn’t even look like ink— it was as though it was just some miscellaneous blue liquid that was leaking from behind the frame.

 

_“a branch broke_

_and poor ophelia drowns_

_there’s a different way out_

_you know what to do, right?”_

 

 _Ophelia_.

 

The brook painting. You know exactly where to go.

 

As you rush back to the main gallery downstairs, you know that danger is ever present in this stupid decision. You fail to think of all of the logical possibilities for seeping strangeness around you. Maybe Seokjin used his riches to cook up his idea of a “fun” prank on you. Maybe there’s a door you missed and everyone else has transferred to a separate exhibit building, just coincidentally all together. But, fear is a very powerful thing when it swallows you whole. And if this message in scrawled ink is the first coherent-seeming lead you have— you might as well certainly take it.

 

The same velvet ropes that closed the floor canvas off to the public were now gone, a sickening falling victim to the murky water in front of you begins to spike through your stomach like thorns. Rooting your feet to the ground, forcibly creating holes and crevices of confusion and irresolute fear within you. A single pair of blue footprints; the same, piercingly blue, jade eyes that were staring straight through every fiber of your being earlier marked themselves before the expanse of the floor painting. In the beats of silence, and the blood starting to pour behind your ears like buckets of water crashing and sloshing against a surface, you give the floor painting a hard stare.

 

_This was stupid._

 

If you stepped on the painting, nothing would happen. It’s a two-dimensional surface. In moments in would be just your luck; the moment you step on the canvas nothing would happen, the lights would glow back to light glaringly, and security would harshly scold you for something along the lines vandalism of private property. But your mind reiterates Namjoon’s words, starkly like a mantra.

 

_“And be careful around that painting— you might fall in if you’re not careful.”_

 

Admittedly, you probably would have tried stepping onto painting of your own free will. But you don’t, because those same jade eyes that were staring through you are now on the floor, and in a blur something winds around your ankle and you’re forcibly pulled into frigid, bone-chilling water— the fluid filling your lungs and you can barely breathe.

 

You struggle to open your eyes but your body tumbles against a hard surface. You gasp for air— cold, dry air filling your lungs sharply, and through the water droplets that are smeared and dripping from your lashes, you see that you have been pulled down a case of indigo colored stairs that never had a beginning.


	4. three

Being hunched over in a plethora of freezing cold droplets of water that painfully, vibrantly sink into your skin, against cold marble walls, the rushing surface water you were just yanked through and filled your lungs is now no more. Your lungs sputter like rusty spokes on a bicycle wheel to heave out a few shuddering breaths. Blindly, you bring your shaky fingers up to your face, place pressure aimlessly along your cold skin until you feel the slope of your eyelids, pulling down the thick pearls of water entangled in your lashes. Your adam’s apple bobs with a sharp inhale of breath perforating through your constricted throat from the previous sudden encasement of water, trailing your hands up and over to the crown of your skull to wring out the unbearably cold water saturating your locks. Your shaky breathing is the only thing filling up the otherwise empty space around you.

 

You gaze incredulously up at the stairwell that is now nothing but a wall of indigo; no puddles or specks of water other than the water running off of you and dripping from your clothes.

 

“ _G-god…”_ You hiss through clenched teeth, wincing one more time as the frigid water wrung from your locks cascades down your back.

 

Indigo is the upholder of the politely charming sagacious. Bullshit.

 

This was far from some far-fetched prank. Moreover, why did you even bother trying to rationalize it? Perhaps the sopping wet water completely drowned your mood to the point of no return. If insanity was the gateway back to normality you’d willingly dive. You feel sour, bitter, irritated: _you didn’t want any of this._ As a matter of fact, if you _hadn’t_ crumbled underneath everyone’s gaze and earnestly spoke that you wanted to stay home and not go out with Seokjin: you wouldn’t even be in this situation.

 

There’s no point in brooding over it. You have to get out of this odd indigo confinement. There’s ample room— it doesn’t quite feel like a cell, but there’s some odd ambience the corners of the room give off that you can’t help but feel irrevocably trapped. Shakily hunching forward, a shaky stand up. You know this cowardly dance of pretending everything is fine, why approach it as if you don’t?

 

This indigo room you’re trapped in is like a box. High walls and an unseeable ceiling above you, but you know better that it’s there. You stuff your hands in your sopping wet coat pockets, rummaging around for anything that might deem useful. Your fingers brush over the moistened fabric of your pockets, and though you don’t trace your fingertips over some conveniently placed key like a protagonist may find in their pockets in some one-off RPG, there is something new in your alms you know you didn’t walk in with.

 

Instead of the small aluminum box of cinnamon Altoids you carry religiously in your pocket, it’s a small notebook. Bigger than a pocket-sized notebook, but not enough that would be ample to take lecture notes in or anything. More like something you’d jot thoughts in, or stupid inside jokes between you and your friend. The notebook has an incredibly worn surface, the cover is tattered in some patches with a worn binding, and it looks like many pages have been ripped out. Your index finger divots the notebook open; and there’s not much in it, except for remnants of paper that looks like it's been hastily ripped from the binding leaving behind some worn ivory daggers of paper near the binding. You narrow your (E/C) orbs, thoughts flickering when you trace the elegant scrawl of a name near the upper corner of the notebook on the left-hand side.

 

_Eamon Gravois_

 

You bite your lip, and open up a small inside pocket the notebook has. There’s a small corner of a piece of something you can only presume to be card stock. You scratch against it to lift it upward, being unnervingly aware of how dry the notebook is compared to how copping wet you are.

 

You pull it out; it’s a photo of someone, but you can hardly tell who it is. It's a small photo card that's been dyed ten times over with a thick, red substance. A faint smell of copper is picked up by your nose, and you wanted to throw this notebook on the floor. _Disgusting, it's covered in blood...!_

 

“Jesus, who in the world drenches a photo card with blood…?” You whisper hoarsely, oddly more curious than perverse over the gruesome oddity. As much as you want to discard a tattered notebook; you know you can’t. Why in the world would a painter have a bloodied photo card in his personal journal? On second thought—

 

_You have Eamon Gravois’s notebook._

 

“Oh, _jeez.”_ Your orbs widen, wracking your head for some sort of line of reason in this sea of uncertainty. You shouldn’t be in possession of something like this; a famous, veiled and mysterious, presumed-dead-man’s-notebook that countless scholars around the world would give up a kidney for. Now when everything goes back to normal you’ll have to think of some elaborate artifact for why you’re in possession of a highly valuable notebook to some when you clearly have no remote relationship towards it other than morbid curiosity.

 

You put the notebook away. The least you could do is return it when you get back. Maybe you might grant someone’s happiness if you did.

 

It’s almost as though you have fresh-eyes looking up from a sketchy notebook. Looking back at the wall again gives you the impression of something amiss. Stepping forward, the wet heels of your boots the only thing providing noise, you place your hand on one of the walls. The texture seems off, so you place your palm against another wall. Sturdy; you know, what a wall would feel like.

 

Your palm makes its way back to the strange wall of the room. It feels cold and wafer-thin. You pierce your nail into the wall and it glides through smoothly. There’s a beige color beneath the indigo wall; it’s paper thin because there’s some sort of paper wedged underneath the fucking paint. Ripping away strips of the indigo color, there’s some sort of worn and roughly-handled article in the wall. You have to put your boot against the wall, trying to yank the sheet out: yet oddly enough it just doesn’t budge. Your fingers grapple onto a sizeable portion of the halve that’s sticking out of the wall, and the sound of the paper being abrasive with the indigo cubical you’re confined in gets louder until you give it one final yank with a push of your foot against the wall.

 

The wall shattered, the sound of popping and cracking glass nearly splits open your eardrums as you fall backward. Your back is the first thing that launches to the floor, and you can’t seem to recognize the suffocating build up in your lungs that grow parasitically close to your throat. When you collapse harshfully among the shards of broken glass, you can only register three things: the article that’s loosely gripped in your hands, the floor, and the bloodied poppy flower petals that forcibly erupted from your body as you crashed to the floor. Your chest feels hollow, like a bunch of lacy cobwebs littered with holes.

 

You nearly killed yourself to pull an article that was a mini-biography of Eamon Gravois out of the wall. Well, at least that was what you could make out from the blurred heading before your eyelids snapped closed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unedited.


	5. four

_"You're going to die, you crazy bastard."_

 

_"Yoongi, that's the entire fucking point—"  
_

 

" _—_ _I don't care. Why are you wasting this incredible life of yours when there's so much opportunity out there? There's a whole wide world beyond your twisted family and clinging to your past self and you don't even try to change, not even for yourself! You have the resources to be something else, why don't you use them? There's a much more beyond your world and you need to fucking wake up!"  
_

 

* * *

 

 

 

_Brown._

 

You hate the cold, and don't nearly appreciate the way its hands claw down your spine. But it smells sweet and when you open your eyes there's someone with these petty brown eyes peering over you with long gray lashes; blinking once, blinking twice. Their eyes remind you of hot chocolate; the mocha kind with the incredibly rich flavor with hints of cinnamon with the bubbles of froth that form around the rim of the mug.

 

Their satin pink lips are moving but you can't hear them.

 

_"—ve?"_

 

You make a sour face and sit up, the weight of your body now sitting on your collar bone as you prop yourself upward. The figure kneeling in front of you is keeping their polite distance, but has a cautionary hand out just in case if you collapse yet again. Your (E/C) eyes open, and so do your ears.

 

_"—Love?_ Are you alright?"

 

It's a young man about your age, most likely slightly older, staring at you worriedly. But at a glance he exceeds any simple, benign label of "cute" or "handsome". He's gorgeous, he's ethereal. His skin is devoid of blemishes and is no shade lesser than gold, and a full head of silky-looking waves of creamy gray hair that fall over and frame his face so concisely it's nearly meticulous; considering there is no scent of hair product in his vicinity. A delicately curved nose, full lips that are dotted with a small mole at the bottom right corner. Moles dot his face like little clusters of stars over his complexion so carefully that Astraea was anxious as she pulled them from the sky to dust his face. There's one above his left nostril, right cheekbone, the water line of his right eye— some along his neck and ears. His features are strung together like a chamber orchestra; nothing out of place and all woven together in harmony. He has no protruding angular features; they're all curved just right, one eye monolidded and one eye double lidded. You can't feel anything particularly alarming atmosphere radiating from him. It's just his chocolate eyes waiting patiently for your response.

 

"What if I told you I don't know?" You ask him sheepishly, wrapping your arms loosely around your knees as you instinctively lean backward.

 

The young man before you; in a loose, ivory button-up with an open collar covering the brunt of his collar bone embroidered with intertwined bundles of light pink, red and yellow flowers, smiles at you knowingly.

 

"I'd feel the same way." You sigh shakily. Maybe it's because there's a pretty boy you feel unworthy of kneeling in front of you. Maybe it's because you're finding it more difficult to absorb your surroundings. For a moment, it feels nice to be away from trying to register logic versus obscurity. The young male's brown orbs widen in realization, words tumbling from his lips like the rushing of a current in urgency.

 

_"Ah!_ Terribly sorry, love— I'm V. I sort of found you on the floor amidst some glass shards, and the rest is a short-lived history." V smiles gently, holding out a hand to you, more self-assured to have completed his pleasantries. You blink your eyes in surprise, taken aback by the bright greeting amidst awry circumstances.

 

"Oh, (Name)— I'm, (Name)." You utter slowly, sort of feeling pity for the boy before you. You must be the most disappointing sign of life for another person to discover considering the absolute fabricated tragedy you both are living. You've whipped up a vortex of disaster practically every ten feet you step, and his almost intimidatingly good looks make you want to curl up and hide your unbelievably average self.

 

Speaking of which, the paper you nearly killed yourself ( _again_ ) for? Where was it?

 

A heavy feeling weighs your mind as you recognize you're in your same jeans and shoes but in a nice and dry, white collared shirt with some give to it. You're not sopping wet either, which is generally a good thing.

 

"Oh, damn, I know I'm being rude, but have you seen a roomy dark green jacket with a gray hood? Or a piece of paper that was around me after my fall?" You're speaking rate has practically tripled as you rush your sentences, hauling your body upwards from the ground and hastily looking around, taking in your surroundings. You're in a royal blue room that's lined with terribly antique-y looking bookshelves made of rich oak that are strictly compiled of hardcover books and art encyclopedias. There's some depictions of the night sky and the galaxy on wide canvases of what you assume to be oil paint; represented in deep purple and blue tones hung in complex brass frames around the perimeter of the room. It's a pleasant and calming room, and you see an article of clothing neatly folded with a paper atop it on one of the shorter bookshelves in the center of the room. V hums in an bemused yet understanding tone.

 

"Ah, I had it laying out to dry. I'm sorry I couldn't smooth out your paper that much, it was in rough shape when I found it." V sighs out, leaning backward and holding himself up by wrapping his arms around one of his knees propped in the air. Tan slim-fit pants suited him well, along with a spiffy pair of hazel oxfords with an intricate brough.

 

"Don't worry about it. You've done more than enough already... I'm a lot of trouble. Thank you for taking care of me." You huff as you slide your jacket over your arms, the weight of Eamon's notebook still reminiscent and the mini biography of Eamon you yanked from the wall.

 

"No worries. But I'm curious, why in the world were you drenched in water? It was like you took a brief plunge into a lake or something." V points out with a cock of his head, his milky gray looks moving effortlessly with him. You inhale sharply, half-assedly cringing at the memory.

 

"I may or may not have recklessly plunged into a brook painting in an abruptly deserted gallery. Honestly, I have no idea what's going on." You huff out, a surge of heat threatening to dye your cheeks an unruly hue of red. V perks up mid-sentence, blinking his long lashes at you.

 

"Deserted gallery! So you were in the Eamon exhibit when it was normal too?" V asks you eagerly, his deep voice excitedly raising an octave, leaning his body forward. You give him an incredulous look, akin to that of a gaping fish.

 

“Y-Yeah! How did you get in this place we’re in now? And do you know anything about this Eamon? Is he responsible for this?” To be frank, you’re sort of bombarding him with little questions and inquiries like a horribly amazed and intrigued child, trying to wrap your head around all the things you’ve been failing to understand. V smiled at you pleasantly.

 

“Well, the lights flickered on and off in the original gallery. Everyone disappeared— the windows and doors locked alike…” V was trailing off, some wavy strands of his silver locks delicately falling over his face, curling his index finger over his plush bottom lip as he looked down in thought. A brilliant flash of remembrance burst across his expression, and his words were tumbling out of his lips before he could even catch them.

 

“Ah! I looked and looked around the gallery, but I found nothing! When the lights went out entirely, I was standing in from of the “Hanged Man” painting on the top floor, so I backtracked there…” his expression got a little colder, and his voice quieted, sending shivers down your spine. His tone was so muddled with a mass of negative feelings that you couldn’t quite make out the look on his profile. “A message scrawled in blue ink seeped below the composition plaque, and the second I looked up, the hanging man in the painting yanked me through the canvas and I ended up in a maroon area. I've been wandering aimlessly sense— so seeing another person in a similar predicament is nothing short of coincidentally extraordinary.” He finished his story, and the similarities it bared to yours made your head spin, but it relieved you in some way. He chuckled when he saw your crestfallen expression: in part of it’s relatability, and also in part of how much more terrifying V’s descent into the gallery was compared to yours. You willingly walked into an abysmal brook of your own accord— V was forcibly ripped from the fabric of the real world as he knew it.

 

" _Christ,_ " You whisper, muttering a small curse and a weak "sorry". How the hell do you comfort someone who's life is thrown into a spiraling tunnel downward by merely a series of unfortunate events beyond their control? Even experiencing your own endeavors, you'd imagine you'd have some marginal sense of comforting someone. But you don't— simply because you haven't picked yourself up out of your own descent of sorrows. There's something about coping with loss that admittedly can only be mended with time, but you don't consider your plights worthy of any pity or compassion in any stretch. You try so hard but you deem it better to lie beat up on the ground because you know nothing outside of your own self pity and loathing. V's brown orbs flicker, and he just smiles. A bright, sweet smile that hasn't been forced— all plush lips dotted with beauty marks in a box-shaped grin.

 

"It could be worse. At least I landed nicely." You finally manage to meet his eyes, nodding to express a generally normal reaction to cover-up your moment of unnerving quiet. "You coughed up some blood, and flower petals too." You raise a brow at his latter observation, and then your throat tingles as you recall the sensation of something painfully erupting upward from it. It was definitely more pleasant and painful than vomiting, but a revelation dawns on you instantaneously.

 

" _S-Seriously_?" You whine, cheeks becoming red. The chagrin dawns on you like a loud clap of thunder: _V found you in puddle of paint chippings, glass shards, flower petals (allegedly), and your own blood._ What a charming first impression, moreover how wonderful it must've been for him to relocate you while you were bloody and sopping wet. God forbid what your face-looked like— you're already trying to repress everything about the revelation into the back of your skull. V is so pleasant and extraordinarily good-looking, and you completely are some pathetic Mary-Sue that probably grossed him and were a ridiculous handful. He dried off your coat, didn't touch your things, even gave you a new shirt and cleaned you up, dusting all of the glass and paint shards out of your hair. You sink down in shame.

 

_What a fucking wreck,_ you haven't even been around him consciously for that long and you ruin everything. He even saw your in the tank-top beneath your sopping wet shirt: not a complete invasion of privacy, but being chronically embarrassed of your own body seemed to have put you in a melodramatic state of collapse. You're ushering out apologies left and right. You would probably be on the verge of tears if you weren't devoid of them.

 

"Oh, love," V lets out a soft laugh, rubbing your shoulder blade affectionately. A soft warmth spreads across your spine, and you try to convince yourself to pull your hands away from your face. Why is V so kind to you? What did you do to deserve any of it? You literally _just_ met.

 

"I've seen worse, love. Some glass shards and trace amounts of blood isn't going to abhor me anymore than a kicked puppy would." You need to meet V's gaze like a big girl; you can't keep running and hiding. You grimace, peeking over your shoulder.

 

" _Alright."_ You cough up breathily, and you both stand up from the floor. V curls his spin backward for a stretch, a velvety hum cascading from his lips.

 

"You have a pretty mark too. I'm green with envy." V comments, and you shift towards him, raises a brow. _Mark?_ He seems to catch on to your confusion.

 

"Oh? Check the underside of your forearms." You comply with his tip, turning your arms outward in front of you. He was right— the mark on your arm was so vibrant and detailed that it couldn't nearly pass off as some tacky tattoo. It was a sole, blooming poppy anemone flower in a white hue. It was practically a mirror image of the real thing, as though the flower was just laid upon the underside of your forearm. A soft lavender hue emitted near the center of the petals, and the dome-shaped corolla was a soft navy surrounded by little stems with caps shaped like a rolled oat. But it wasn't completely perfect: one petal was missing. There were approximately seventeen left— that number being one less than the count of your real age. There's a small horror curling in your stomach, so you try to push it down.

 

"What is _this?"_ You stare at V like a clueless child, eyes swimming with worry. A look of guilt passes over V's chocolate orbs, and he averts his gaze briefly before scratching the back of his neck, biting his lip.

 

"We both have one. Well, the mark I mean— not necessarily the same depiction." V swallows, taking his long fingers to pull away the left side of his loose shirt collar. There's rich, deep marks covering trailing up the side of his body— branches of asphodel clawing up his collar bone, the tips of some of it's pointed white petals reaching just far enough to touch his neck. The flowers on the branches are like clusters of stars, and the veins of the flower line the underside and center of the petals with lines. He's only stretched his shirt far enough so you can see his left side, but you can only imagine how far the flower marking has stretched across the entire left side of his body. A wide clamped-up bushel of the asphodel flowers are chained with long ebony strands from the plant, sitting a few inches away from his collar bone. "I think this is asphodel... I apologize, it's not very pretty." He hums in acknowledgement, readjusting his shirt to hide away the expansive asphodel mark.

 

You feel guilty for making a small fuss of a singular flower planted upon the underside of your forearm. V has an indefinitely permanent, almost tree-like mass of a marking decorating his entire left side. You can't imagine how far the mark has spread across his body.

 

"But anyways," V clears his throat, giving you a small smile to gloss over your crestfallen demeanor. "The purpose of the marks is like a timer— quite literally, it's a marker of some sort. Unfortunately, I have no idea what it's for." You nod in agreement— really, how could either of you know? You can't even compare any similarities or differences considering the size, scale, and flower species of your markings alone. You stuff your hands in your pockets, mostly out of nervous habit.

 

"V?"

 

"Hmm?" V shoots you a gentle questioning look.

 

"Your mark... don't scrutinize it so much... it's quite suiting, you know? It compliments you well." You say in quiet earnest. Asphodel were stiflingly pretty, especially the white ones that adorned V's golden skin. V laughs sheepishly, a light lilac color dusting his cheek bones. His laugh sounds like dripping honey, raw with happiness, without rhyme or reason.

 

_"I'm glad."_


End file.
